A System Level Analysis of Coastal Ecosystem Responses to Hurricane Impacts

Abstract

Tropical cyclones are major disturbances for coastal systems. Hurricane Harvey made landfall in Texas, USA, on August 25, 2017 as a category 4 storm. There were two distinct disturbances associated with this storm that were spatially decoupled: (1) high winds causing direct damage and storm surge, and (2) high rains causing scouring floods and significant discharge of fresh water carrying carbon and nutrients to estuaries. Here, we provide a synthesis of the effects of Hurricane Harvey on biogeochemical, hydrographic, and biotic components of freshwater and estuarine systems and their comparative resistance and resilience to wind-and rain-driven disturbances. Wind-driven disturbances were most severe along the coastal barrier islands and lower estuaries, damaging mangroves and seagrass and increasing sediment coarseness. Rain-driven disturbances were most pronounced within freshwater streams and the upper estuaries. Large volumes of freshwater run-off reduced the abundance of riverine fauna and caused hypoxic and hyposaline conditions in the estuaries for over a week. In response to this freshwater input event, benthic fauna diversity and abundance decreased, but mobile fauna such as estuarine fishes did not markedly change. Although hydrographic and biogeochemical components were highly perturbed, they returned to baseline conditions within days. In contrast, biotic components demonstrated lower magnitude changes, but some of these organisms, particularly the sedentary flora and fauna, required weeks to months to return to pre-storm conditions, and some did not recover within the 6 months reported here. Our synthesis illustrates that resistance and resilience of system components may negatively co-vary and that structural components of coastal systems may be the most vulnerable to long-term changes following tropical cyclones.

How a Simple Question About Freshwater Inflow to Estuaries Shaped a Career

“…Although hydrographic and biogeochemical components were highly perturbed, they returned to baseline conditions within days. In contrast, biotic components demonstrated lower magnitude changes, but some of these organisms, particularly the sedentary flora and fauna, required weeks to months to return to pre-storm conditions, and some did not recover within the 6 months reported in the study (Patrick et al 2020).…”

“…Hurricanes are storm surge, wind, and flood events. After Hurricane Harvey (25 August 2017), large volumes of freshwater run-off reduced the abundance of riverine fauna and caused hypoxic and hyposaline conditions in the estuaries for over a week (Patrick et al 2020. In the estuary, infauna diversity and abundance decreased, but mobile fauna such as estuarine fishes did not change.…”

“…Recently it was discovered that it was the variance of salinity, not the mean, that was controlling diversity, and high variance leads to very low biodiversity in Texas bays (Van Diggelen and Montagna 2016). This response was observed after Hurricane Harvey, which caused steep declines in benthos diversity when salinity in San Antonio Bay dropped from a salinity of 10 to 0 (Patrick et al 2020).…”

Timescales and Magnitude of Water Quality Change in Three Texas Estuaries Induced by Passage of Hurricane Harvey

“…1.4 ± 1.7 25 0.5 ± 0.6 10 0.057 in fish community structure were observed, concurrent with reduced catch per unit effort from August to September 2017 in GE (Patrick et al 2020). Elevated loadings of inorganic nutrients frequently accompany tropical cyclone passage (Peierls et al 2003;Paerl et al 2018).…”

Variation in Seagrass-Associated Macroinvertebrate Communities Along the Gulf Coast of Peninsular Florida: An Exploration of Patterns and Ecological Consequences

“…Often, responses to differences in seagrass meadows are observed only for certain taxa within the community, only at certain scales, or only in certain time periods (Heck and Thoman, 1984;Bell and Westoby, 1986a,b;Hovel et al, 2002;Jelbart et al, 2007;Moore and Hovel, 2010;McCloskey and Unsworth, 2015). In addition, factors other than seagrass complexity can influence seagrassassociated faunal communities, such as nutrient enrichment (Hooks et al, 1976;Gil et al, 2006;Peterson et al, 2007;Armitage and Fourqurean, 2009;Daudi et al, 2012;Burghart et al, 2013;Tuya et al, 2013), exposure to waves and tides as determined by position within the estuary (Bell and Westoby, 1986b;Jelbart et al, 2007;Moore and Hovel, 2010;Parsons et al, 2013;Ávila et al, 2015), storms or other large-scale physical disturbances (Herkül et al, 2011;Patrick et al, 2020), and predation pressure (Stoner, 1980;Heck et al, 2000;Heck and Valentine, 2007;Mattila et al, 2008;Amundrud et al, 2015;Huang et al, 2015). Therefore, despite decades of effort, relatively few generalizable relationships have emerged that link differences in seagrass-associated faunal communities with metrics of seagrass complexity, particularly at spatial scales of kilometers or more (Boström et al, 2006), perhaps due to the challenges of finding suitable variation in environmental conditions and the complexity of meadows comprising one species of seagrass at such scales (e.g., Cardoso et al, 2007).…”